Rosso Conero is a wine appellation in the Marche region of Italy. The red wines made here mainly use the Montepulciano grape which must consist of 85% of the wine’s grape content. Rosso Conero are full bodied red wines that are dark and dense. You’ll find plenty of black currant flavours along with black cherry and black raspberries. Read more […]

Rosso Conero Wine Paired with Grilled Steak

Rosso Conero is a tongue staining red wine that will go extremely well with a steak. This wine boasts fruity and juicy flavours of black cherry, black raspberry and black currant, along with oak age qualities such as smoke. Read more […]

Rosso Conero Red Wine and Game Stew

Rosso Conero is a hearty red wine that matches the body of stew. The fruity red flavours of Rosso Conero will mingle nicely and cancel out the gaminess that people sometimes find unpleasant with game stew.

What red wine to drink with Lasagna

Rosso Conero is a wonderful red wine to pair with Lasagna. The fruity red flavours of this wine lift up each component of the baked Lasagna allowing you taste the various layers of love that have been put into the preparation of this classic Italian dish. Read more […]

This video introduces an art restoration teacher, his mission, and his students in Urbino, Italy.

Michele Papi and his sister, Federica Papi, established their own restoration business, Il Compasso, in 1983. Along with the rest of the Il Compasso team—graduates from the University of Urbino’s restoration program—they have gained multiple clients, including museums, churches, and theatres, mostly across the Marche.

Venice has been hit once again by “Acqua Alta”, high waters flooding the city mainly between October and February every year.

Today it was about 120cm, which means that about 29% of the city was flooded. Venetians are used to it and are normally alerted when the tide is going to be +110cm with acoustic signals or an sms service they have subscribed to.

If you are not in a hurry you can just wait a few hours to allow the water to go back down. The water rises and goes back down in 6 hour cycles, which means, that every 6 hours a flood in Venice could occur if the water would rise over the mareographic zero. 5% of the city gets flooded if the tide is +100cm, but this normally happens only in fall and winter and of course not every day.

If you want to experience live “Acqua Alta” you can just take your shoes off and roll up your pants and walk over flooded St. Mark’s Square. Another option is to buy the typical Venetian boots for $15-$20 and walk around.

The city of Venice is well organized and will set up walk ways for those who are not prepared and if you are going to Venice tomorrow 28th October to participate or watch the 27th Edition of the Venice Marathon take your boots along as “Acqua Alta” will be more than +120cm again!

What exactly is ‘authentic’ Italian food? It may be hard to define, but Italians know it when the taste it. To try to get to the bottom of this elusive question, I have written a three part series on the subject:

Part I: The Varieties of Italian Cooking

This post walks you through the principal types of Italian cooking you are likely to encounter from true Italian food, the kind they make in Italy, to Italian Diaspora cooking, which at its best has an authenticity all its own, to the more dubious ‘Italian-style’ cooking and just plain bad imitations.

To read the post, click here.

Part II: Learning to Tell Real Italian Food from Fake

This post gives you some pointers on where to go to learn about authentic Italian food, from the best books and online sources to TV shows, and lists some of the most common tell-tales signs of fakery.

To read the post, click here.

Part III: Learning to Cook Authentic Italian Food at Home

This posts gives you the skinny on how to recreate authentic Italian dishes at home. It’s much easier than you think, so long as you keep some basic pointers in mind. The post runs down how to choose and work with ingredients for authentic Italian flavors, and how to develop authentic Italian cooking techniques. To get the most out of this post, read it in conjunction with our pages on The Italian Pantry and Italian Food Culture.

To read the post, click here.

Once you’ve been through these posts, I can guarantee that you will have a very good idea of what it takes to cook and eat Italian food—the way it was meant to be enjoyed.

…One path to agriturismo ownership is to acquire property to convert into an agriturismo, which is what Damien Conrad, a former financial services project manager, and his family did in 2006. They sought a lifestyle outside the UK that was “self-sufficient and less materialistic and that offered a community-based, safe and stimulating environment for our children”. After scouting properties in Italy and elsewhere, they purchased the Villa San Raffaello property near Sarnano in Italy’s Le Marche region.

Their purchase included eight acres of land and a derelict farmhouse. The Conrads restored the farmhouse to create four apartments with a total of 10 bedrooms. There are now several al fresco eating areas and a pool with views of the medieval town of Sarnano.

The Conrads lease their land, which produces maize, fruits and nuts, and vines that can yield up to 700 litres of wine each year from a combination of Merlot, Sangiovese and Syrah grapes. Vegetables from the kitchen garden feed the family and guests. Income ranges from €3,000 to €5,000 per week, depending on the season. Despite being integrated into the community, the Conrads are returning to the UK to meet their children’s educational needs, and are selling Villa San Rafaello. They are asking €750,000 for their property…

There are lots of eerie places in Italy: the catacombs in Palermo with its creepy mummified children, virgins and a few elderly people suspended from the walls. Then there’s the Capuchin Crypt in Rome with the bones of 4,000 monks on display.

But those are mere child’s play compared to Italy’s supposedly haunted and appropriately gloomy medieval castles.

Here are a few eerie stories to help breed some terrifying nightmares.

The Lady With Big Boots

Crecchio Castle (Castello di Crecchio in the photo) in Abruzzo was built in the 11th century. According to many accounts heavy footsteps can be heard on the top floor, as a beautiful woman, probably wearing big boots, walks through the castle’s rooms.

The woman with the heavy footsteps is supposedly the mistress of Baron De Riseis, who lived in the castle in the 19th century.

I was in the castle one evening during a local festival, but all I could hear were the noises of real people on the streets. Some passages and corridors did look quite spooky in the flickering lights.

The Girl With Blue Hair

The legend of Azzurrina has been known in the area near Rimini for many centuries.

In the 14th century there was Guendolina, a girl-albino with snow-white hair in the Montebello castle (castello di Montebello). Her parents were worried about the popular superstitions according to which albino-people were somewhat demonic.

The father didn’t allow the girl to leave the castle and the mother coloured Guendolina’s hair dark but it always looked as blue as her eyes, so she was nicknamed Azzurrina (“azzurro” means “blue”).

One day, on summer solstice, while playing in the basement of the castle, blue haired Guendolina disappeared. Some said her the father killed her but her body was never found.

Now, apparently, every five years on June 21, people hear a strange sound in the castle: the sound of a girl crying, shouting for help and calling “mamma”.

You can hear the recordings of the Center of Para-psychological Studies in Bologna here (fast-forward to 6:50).

After art school graduation he starts his artist career in 2001, working as freelance illustrator and producing comics in Italy for some traditional publishing companies like Eura Editoriale and Coniglio Editore. In 2005 he is one of official artists of acclaimed Italian indie series L’Insonne.

Increasingly distant from conventional comics he focuses on erotic art, celebrating the beauty in female form. His work appears in most renowned places such as Penthouse Magazine and alt fetish bible Skin Two.

In 2007 he brings to Italy the NYC’s own movement Dr Sketchy’s Anti-Art School, founding the first branch in Rome.

In 2010 begins a collaboration with the famous and most irreverent Italian magazine Frigidaire.

In 2011 his latest adult graphic novel Mona Agent X can be found in bookstores of Italy and France, and is coming out in the US by 2012.